Saturday, December 24, 2016

What Putin really said about Trump, Reagan and the DNC

The Atlantic Imperialists really dislike Vladimir Putin. They dislike Russia in principle, as the ultimate "other" - a large, European civilization separate from the post-Roman West. As usual, the Economist is completely wrong: It is really the Empire that sees Russia as an existential threat, because its resurgence provided proof positive that the Western "end of history" paradigm was even desirable, much less inevitable. As for the validity of Western models... how are those working out these days?

Vladimir Putin's goal is to undermine Western democracies whose models present an existential threat to his rule https://t.co/6JUXNKgkTI

Much has been made of Putin's supposed trolling of the Democrats for being sore losers at the December 23 press conference at the Kremlin. This comes from the same media that kept assuring everyone that Hillary Clinton's presidency was inevitable, so forgive me if I am inclined to take it with a grain of salt. Especially since the actual transcript of Putin's remarks at the marathon year-end press conference paints a different picture (all emphasis mine):

Vladimir Putin: I have commented on this issue on a number of occasions. If you want to hear it one more time, I can say it again. The current US Administration and leaders of the Democratic Party are trying to blame all their failures on outside factors. I have questions and some thoughts in this regard.

We know that not only did the Democratic Party lose the presidential election, but also the Senate, where the Republicans have the majority, and Congress, where the Republicans are also in control. Did we, or I also do that? We may have celebrated this on the “vestiges of a 17th century chapel,” but were we the ones who destroyed the chapel, as the saying goes? This is not the way things really are. All this goes to show that the current administration faces system-wide issues, as I have said at a Valdai Club meeting.

It seems to me there is a gap between the elite’s vision of what is good and bad and that of what in earlier times we would have called the broad popular masses. I do not take support for the Russian President among a large part of Republican voters as support for me personally, but rather see it in this case as an indication that a substantial part of the American people share similar views with us on the world’s organisation, what we ought to be doing, and the common threats and challenges we are facing. It is good that there are people who sympathise with our views on traditional values because this forms a good foundation on which to build relations between two such powerful countries as Russia and the United States, build them on the basis of our peoples’ mutual sympathy.

They would be better off not taking the names of their earlier statesmen in vain, of course. I’m not so sure who might be turning in their grave right now. It seems to me that Reagan would be happy to see his party’s people winning everywhere, and would welcome the victory of the newly elected President so adept at catching the public mood, and who took precisely this direction and pressed onwards to the very end, even when no one except us believed he could win.

The outstanding Democrats in American history would probably be turning in their graves though. Roosevelt certainly would be because he was an exceptional statesman in American and world history, who knew how to unite the nation even during the Great Depression’s bleakest years, in the late 1930s, and during World War II. Today’s administration, however, is very clearly dividing the nation. The call for the electors not to vote for either candidate, in this case, not to vote for the President-elect, was quite simply a step towards dividing the nation. Two electors did decide not to vote for Trump, and four for Clinton, and here too they lost. They are losing on all fronts and looking for scapegoats on whom to lay the blame. I think that this is an affront to their own dignity. It is important to know how to lose gracefully.

But my real hope is for us to build business-like and constructive relations with the new President and with the future Democratic Party leaders as well, because this is in the interests of both countries and peoples.